Karen Garsson

Biography

Ms. Garsson was Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at SAIC, where she designed and executed corporate citizenship strategies involving employee engagement, community outreach and environmental sustainability initiatives. She collaborated with SAIC's CTO to create a nationwide program that facilitated the engagement of the company's scientists and engineers with children at schools in their communities.

Previous to her four years in this role, Karen was Vice President of Stock Programs at SAIC and President of the broker/dealer subsidiary that traded SAIC stock.  During her 20 years in this field, she held various roles leading up to the executive positions heading up the Stock Programs Department and the broker/dealer Bull, Inc.  Ms. Garsson performed a key role in the company's effort to go public in 2006, and facilitated post IPO activity within the company and its various new vendor relationships.

Ms. Garsson currently serves on the boards of the UC San Diego Alumni Association and the San Diego Natural History Museum.  She has also served on the boards of Athena San Diego, Project Wildlife, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the San Diego Science Alliance. She received her bachelor’s degree in Management Science from UC San Diego and her MBA from the University of San Diego.